Consumer batteries, whether they be zinc acid, alkaline, lithium, nickel cadmium (Ni-Cad) rechargeable, or the like usually are sold in blister packs or loose in bins. Blister packs normally are comprised of a heavy cardboard sheet with printing thereon, batteries stacked on the sheet, and a suitably shaped clear plastic cover (blister) enclosing the batteries against the sheet with the periphery of the plastic cover being sealed to the cardboard sheet. Such blister packaging, rather than batteries just loosely tossed in a bin, is desireable since it eliminates any chance that the batteries might be shorted out or drained by an unintentional conductive path. Being sealed, the blister packs also assure the consumer that the batteries being bought are fresh and have not been previously put into use.
Such blister packs, although advantageous when compared to loose batteries, have disadvantageous features also. They take up a large volume during shipment, are difficult to package in shipping containers without folding or crimping damage and once opened, they are not successfully reusable. This last feature is particularly disadvantageous when four or more batteries are being sold in the same pack but the consumer, although using batteries at a high rate, has a battery powered device which uses less than the total. Usually what happens is the consumer attempts to re-use the blister pack by placing it in a drawer with the batteries loosely in the blister. In most instances the blister and or the cardboard sheet is torn during opening and the batteries just fall out into a drawer where the consumer cannot determine which are new, fresh batteries useful for applications such as portable tape recorders and which, although used, might be satisfactory for low current applications like clocks.
When marketing consumer items like batteries, where many manufacturers are competing with very similar products, it is desireable from a marketing standpoint to have a distinctive package. Heretofore, the distinctiveness of such blister packages has relied upon the printing thereon since for the same type battery, most blister packs are identical in shape.